


Benefits of the Eye

by SingingInTheRaiin



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, Gen, M/M, Tim participating in shenanigans to get Jon and Martin together, chilling with friends, early season 1, getting drunk, of course there's only one bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22579270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: Even early on in his career as the Head Archivist, Jon is amazing at trivia night.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 24
Kudos: 527





	Benefits of the Eye

“Arizona,” Jon answered confidently as soon as the question was asked.

Tim narrowed his eyes as he looked up from the little pad of paper that was resting on the bar in front of them. “And what makes you so sure of that? It’s not like US geography was a big theme in school.”

Jon frowned, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I don’t know how I know- I just do. It’s the right answer. I got all the rest right, so why would I be wrong now?”

“I don’t know, maybe because you’re not secretly cheating this round?”

Sasha reached out to put her hand on Tim’s shoulders. “Relax, he’s not cheating. With the way this pub is set up, I’m pretty sure everyone in the room would be able to see if someone had their phone out to look things up. Just write down the answer. This might actually be the first time that we win trivia night.”

Tim kept giving Jon suspicious looks, but he did scribble down the answer, and then he hopped down to go hand the paper in to the announcer. While he was up, Martin reached out to awkwardly pat Jon’s shoulder. “You’re doing so well at this,” he said with just a little bit of a drunken slur. “You’re so smart, Jon.”

Jon felt the tips of his ears heat up, and he cleared his throat a couple of times before raising his mug to take a few sips of beer just so that he’d have something to do. He didn’t even particularly like the taste of beer, and he was convinced that nobody else did either, and everyone just pretended to because they all thought that everyone else liked it. Christ, maybe he’d had a bit too much already. He’d always been something of a lightweight, which had amused Georgie to no end when they were in college. Okay, now he knew he was drunk, because he hadn’t thought about Georgie in years. 

But there was no time to fall down that rabbit hole, because Tim came back, and the announcer called out that the correct answer had been Arizona. Then he moved on to the next question. Jon leaned across Sasha so that he could share the right answer with Tim, who had declared himself to be the official answer-writer as soon as they’d arrived earlier. “It’s Freud.”

Tim let out a loud sigh. “Of course it is.” 

The night went on, and Jon found himself feeling more relaxed as he had more to drink. He ended up giggling with Martin about something or other, though he had absolutely no idea what was so funny. And then the announcer declared that team Magnus (as Tim had smugly decided would be their team name) had won after getting all of the answers right, which meant that they didn’t have to pay for any of their drinks.

Sasha grabbed one of Jon’s arms to raise it over their heads. “Woohoo! We actually won trivia night!” 

Tim crossed his arms over his chest, and sniffed once. “I still think the boss must’ve cheated. How the hell else would he have known the answer to every single question?”

Martin shoved playfully at Tim’s shoulder. “Don’t be upset, I’m sure you would have thought of the answers too!” Then he linked arms with Sasha and Jon, and the three of them managed to stumble into a cab with Tim’s helpful directions. It was unfair, really, since he’d had just as much to drink as the rest of them, but he seemed to just be a bit buzzed, and nothing else. 

Tim rattled off their addresses to the cab driver and then handed over a wad of cash as he squished into the back, sandwiching Jon and Martin together in the middle of the seat that had clearly not been designed for four fully grown adults. Jon ended up basically sitting on Martin’s lap, though he was short enough that he didn’t have to worry about bumping his head on the roof, and drunk enough to not feel overly embarrassed about the situation. 

Sasha and Tim lived closer to the pub, so they got dropped off first, and then the driver stopped in front of Jon’s place. “Alright love birds, here ya are.”

Martin frowned as he leaned towards the window to look out, practically pressing Jon down flat in his attempt to see. “That’s not my flat,” he mumbled.

The driver shrugged. “Well, unless you got more money, I ain’t going any further.” 

Martin and Jon both patted themselves down, and found their wallets missing. “I’m going to kill Tim,” Jon muttered as he slid out of the cab, and Martin followed after him. “C’mon I must have some cash lying around somewhere.”

Martin let out a loud yawn. “I’m too tired to travel more. Let’s just have a sleepover.”

The small part of Jon’s brain that understood there would be consequences in the morning tried to scream out, but the alcohol sloshed part of his brain was able to ignore it. “Alright then, c’mon.” They went up to Jon’s flat, and kicked off their shoes at the entrance. “Want some tea?”

“I can make it,” Martin volunteered, even as he tripped over his own feet and ended up sprawled out on the couch. “Er, maybe you should make it.”

Jon snorted as he pulled out the only tin he had (he never had guests over, so why would he bother stocking multiple flavors?), and poured out the tea. He made his just the way he liked it, and then made Martin’s the way that Martin liked best. It was just like with the trivia questions, where he didn’t even know how he knew that it was right, but he knew that it was.

Martin let out an appreciative groan as Jon handed him the warm mug, and he clutched it in his hands. He took a deep breath in to smell it, and then smiled up at Jon. “This is perfect.” He was too out of it to question how Jon knew how he liked his tea. Jon got distracted by that smile. It made his stomach flutter weirdly, but seemed to warm him up more than the tea did. Which was obviously impossible, and Jon couldn’t explain it. 

They finished their tea, but they weren’t magically sobered up, and Jon tried not to think about the hangovers that they were both sure to have in the morning. It was fine, since it was just the one night. And it had felt kinda nice to be the reason that their team won.  
,,,

When Jon woke up in the morning, it was to a very warm weight pressed up against his back, and it took him several seconds to remember what had happened. Jon had said that his couch was very uncomfortable, and insisted that Martin take the bed, but Martin had said that he couldn’t put Jon out of his bed in his own flat, and then… well, everything after that was a bit of a blur, but it was pretty easy to figure out that they’d ended up deciding to share the bed.

Jon tried to get up, but Martin’s arms just pulled him in tighter, and even though Jon had to pee and brush his teeth, he decided that this felt nice, so he stopped wiggling to escape. Of course once Martin woke up, they’d both brush this off as one of those funny stories of drunken shenanigans, but for now, Jon let himself enjoy the comfort of being held by someone.

He felt it the moment Martin woke up, since his arms immediately retracted, and he practically leapt out of the bed. “Oh, I-” then he cut himself off to rush into the bathroom, where Jon could hear him being sick. Hopefully Martin had made it to the toilet, but Jon decided not to be too mad if there was a bit of a mess to deal with. Actually, he was rather surprised that he didn’t feel worse. Not even a bit of a headache to deal with. 

Jon got up and headed into the bathroom to check on Martin, who was hunched over the toilet. “There’s paracetamol in the cabinet, and I’m going to go make some tea and toast.”

They both ate and then took turns in the shower, and eventually were able to make themselves presentable enough to go to work. Unfortunately, none of Jon’s clothes fit Martin, which meant he had to wear the same things he’d been wearing yesterday, but he’d hung them up while he showered, which at least got rid of some of the wrinkles.

When they got to the Institute, Jon made a beeline straight for Tim’s desk, and he looked at the man with narrowed eyes. “Alright, you’d had your laugh, now hand over the wallets.”

Tim continued to chuckle as he dropped both of the stolen wallets down on Jon’s waiting palm. “Hey, you should be thanking me. I…” then he trailed off as he looked over Jon’s shoulder, and Jon turned to see Martin walking towards the bullpen with a steaming mug in one hand. Tim got to his feet and grabbed Jon's shoulder. “Wait, don’t tell me that you two actually-?”

Jon scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous. We were both drunk and we went to bed and then we woke up. And even if we’d been in our right minds, I don’t-” he cut himself off, and took a slow, deep breath. “Anyways, it’s none of your business, Timothy Stoker, and in fact, highly inappropriate, seeing as I am your boss.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Come on, you’ve been my boss for like two weeks, and before that we were just regular coworkers.”

“I am not encouraging this behavior,” Jon informed him in the haughtiest voice he could manage. Then he dropped Martin’s wallet onto his desk before fleeing to his office and slamming the door shut behind him. He was never doing trivia night again.  
,,,

Jon cursed all of his life choices when he found himself getting dragged to the pub again just a couple of weeks later. He hadn’t even wanted to go, but Martin had looked so disappointed when Jon had said that- not that he cared about what Martin thought, so it didn’t even matter. But Jon had done some research into how to be a good boss, and he knew that team building was important, so that’s the only reason he changed his mind and reluctantly agreed to go. 

Even though he hadn’t gotten sick at all last time, Jon still vowed that he’d have no more than a single beer, and he noticed that Martin stuck to soda the entire night. 

After the first few trivia questions were over (and they’d gotten all of them right thanks to a team effort between Jon and Sasha), Tim slapped the little booklet down in front of Jon. “Here, since you know basically everything and could probably become a millionaire on a game show or something, you can write down the answers.”

Jon rolled his eyes, but he accepted the pen and pad, and waited for the next question to be called out. He also kept half an eye on Tim, but even for someone with his lack of social skills, Jon was pretty sure that Tim wasn’t actually angry with him for getting all of the answers right.

In fact, knowing all of the answers started to make Jon feel strange. Something in the pit of his stomach knotted up, especially whenever he tried to think about where he might know the answers from. Last time, he’d gotten too drunk to really be bothered, but this time it itched at the edge of his mind.

He ended up pushing the pad over to Sasha as he excused himself and ducked outside to take in some fresh air. The air was still bitterly cold, and stung at the inside of his lungs, but it was better than being inside. How did he know those answers?

He heard the door to the pub swing open, but didn’t think anything of it until he heard a familiar voice. “Jon? Are you alright?”

Jon turned to look up at Martin, whose face was pinched with concern. “Yeah, yeah, I’m- I’m fine.” Then he narrowed his eyes. “Come on, I’ve been a complete arse to you since we moved down to the basement, so why are you going out of your way to be nice to me?”

Martin’s cheeks lit up a bright red, and he shrugged. “Would it make the world a better place if I was mean to you?”

Jon blinked once, and then broke eye contact, staring down at the ground that still had little bits of ice clinging to it from when it had snowed a few days ago. “No, I suppose not.”

They were both quiet for a few minutes, and then Jon felt something warm getting draped over his shoulders. He looked up in surprise when he realized that Martin had just given him his jacket. Martin looked surprised too, even though he was the one who did it. “Sorry, I just- you seemed- you were shivering, and I’ve got my jumper so I’m-”

“Thank you,” Jon said softly. 

Martin jammed his hands into his trouser pockets. “Do you wanna go back in? They’re gonna do the bonus round and we need you. I mean- like as a team for trivia, because you know all the answers, not like- I wasn’t saying that I-”

Jon laughed. “I know what you meant. Come on, then, let’s finish the game before we freeze to death out here. And it might be useful to have Tim owe me if we win again.”

In the end they did win again, but then they were disqualified from playing in the future because someone had overheard Tim jokingly accusing Jon of cheating and had taken it too seriously. The four of them laughed as they left the pub, acting like they’d just pulled off some kind of grand criminal feat rather than getting booted from doing trivia. 

This time, Jon was able to put much more appreciation into just how warm Martin was as they walked next to each other, Jon still wearing Martin’s jacket because he hadn’t brought anything warmer with him. They all took a cab again, though this time Tim didn’t try to snatch any wallets, and he paid enough to cover all four of their addresses.

Once Tim and Sasha had both been dropped off, Jon turned to look at Martin. “Do you- do you want to come up for tea?”

Martin’s eyes widened, and then he grinned. “Yeah, I’d like that.” They got out at Jon’s flat, and Jon decided that it was fitting revenge that Tim had paid money for the ride to Martin’s flat too even though they hadn’t gone there. They went up to Jon’s, kicked off their shoes, and this time they both stood at the counter and made tea together. 

They settled onto the couch, pressed closer together than they really needed to be, and Jon flipped on the telly for lack of anything better to do. Once their tea was finished, they made their token arguments about who should take the couch, which ended when Martin said that maybe he should just head back to his own place.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Martin, my bed has clearly already proven to be more than big enough for the both of us.” Then he went into his bedroom without another word, and quickly changed into an old t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Last time they’d both just dropped down fully dressed, but Jon didn’t want to ruin anymore outfits. 

Martin paused in the doorway at the sight of Jon in his very casual sleepwear, and he gulped once. “I don’t think that it would look very great if I go in with wrinkled clothes again.”

Jon shrugged as he slid under the blankets. “You can take ‘em off to hang them up while we sleep and throw them in the washer in the morning. It has a pretty quick cycle, so if you get up early enough you should be able to wash and dry everything and still be able to get to work on time.” 

He rolled onto his side and squeezed his eyes shut as his confidence ran dry. It felt like it took ages before the lights were flicked off, and then Martin got into the bed as well. Despite Jon’s claim of it being ‘more than big enough’ for both of them, it was really a bit of a tight fit. 

When Martin ended up scooting closer, Jon rolled onto his other side so that he was facing him. “Goodnight, Martin,” he said softly.

“Goodnight, Jon.”  
,,,

They found a different pub to do trivia nights at, and even though Jon still protested, he really didn’t mind being dragged along. Because he knew that when it was over, he’d be able to snuggle up with Martin, which was a far better prize than any amount of free drinks.


End file.
